Day 2 - Rotorua

Today we decided to fully immerse ourselves in Rotorua's thermal activity and what better place to do that than Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. We got there early as we didn't want to miss the Lady Knox geyser erupting (which happens at 10:15am prompt every day with some gentle encouragement from some organic soap). It was pretty cool to see it up close but because we knew it wasn't a natural eruption it took some of the magic away and wasn't as impressive as the one we'd seen from afar yesterday. After the eruption, we headed into the park which is pretty stinky however I have now been sharing a confined space with Simon for over a week so it wasn't much different!

The pools and craters were very impressive and there was steam rising from the ground every which way you looked. The colours were also amazing. These are all due to the different mineral elements and include bright orange, yellow and green. There were also bubbly mud pools which reminded me of Shrek's swamp and if you could tolerate the smell were mesmerising to watch.

For the last 2 nights we have been staying in a car park on the lake so tonight we have opted to stay in a holiday park so we can have proper showers and charge all of our electronics! The park even has hot pools so as soon as we had parked up we dug out our swimmers and went for a dip! We are both pretty sore from the caving still so it was lush to relax. When we plug into the electric we also get heating which is a very welcome treat as despite the sunshine today it has been pretty chilly!Read more